The Dupont

Iraq and Iran heart eachother, at least on camera

2008-03-02T16:58:00.003-05:00

In a continuing reminder of the failure of the Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq, we see that one side-effect is that we now have an Iraqi leadership increasingly friendly with the Saddam (and U.S.) enemy Iran. How peachy are things between the two countries? Quite peachy, in quite a contrast with our situation:

Pomp and ceremony greeted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his arrival in Iraq on Sunday, the fanfare a stark contrast to the rushed and secretive visits of his bitter rival U.S. President George W. Bush. Ahmadinejad held hands with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as they walked down a red carpet to the tune of their countries' national anthems, his visit the first by an Iranian president since the two neighbours fought a ruinous war in the 1980s. His warm reception, in which he was hugged and kissed by Iraqi officials and presented with flowers by children, was Iraq's first full state welcome for any leader since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

I am actually not so sure this is a bad thing, however. If both the U.S. and Iran are allies with Iraq, that becomes a common denominator between our two countries, and might lead to a diplomatic detente with a new U.S. president. Maybe.

Wow Bill Maher's New Rules from the other night, brutal and hilarious

2008-03-02T13:03:00.002-05:00

Watch the whole thing. This is, well, politically incorrect:

Hope in Kenya

2008-03-02T12:54:00.002-05:00

This is a few days old (Feb 29), but still worth writing on. Kofi Annan got the job done, and many Kenyans were demanding reconciliation. From the New York Times:

Kenya’s rival leaders broke their tense standoff on Thursday, agreeing to share power in a deal that may end the violence that has engulfed this nation but could be the beginning of a long and difficult political relationship. The country seemed to let out a collective cheer as Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, sat down at a desk in front of the president’s office, with a bank of television cameras rolling, and signed an agreement that creates a powerful prime minister position for Mr. Odinga and splits cabinet posts between the government and the opposition.

But wow a lot is going to have to happen to repair the economic, social, and human damage that has occurred over the past two months:

There is also a deeply divided country to heal. More than 1,000 Kenyans have been killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes in an uncharacteristic burst of violence set off by a deeply flawed election in December. Much of the fighting, like the voting, has been along ethnic lines.... The controversy spawned bloodletting across the country, with supporters of Mr. Odinga and Mr. Kibaki attacking one other in brutal battles. Few were spared. Entire villages were razed. Women and children were burned alive.

The international community needs to move in fast, efficiently, and constructively. Let's go.

Republican loon watch

2008-03-02T12:50:00.002-05:00

From TPMtv, Josh Marshall highlights the worst of the worst this week. Hard to watch, but it serves to remind us how nuts some of these people really are.

Obama closing in on Hillary for a lead in superdelegates

2008-02-23T15:31:00.002-05:00

Another sign this thing is wrapping up for Obama:

The Associated Press reports that Barack Obama has picked up 25 super-delegate votes in the two and a half weeks since his narrow Super Tuesday win, a sign that those in the party establishment are lining up behind the candidate expected to win the pledged-delegate vote. Only 60 supers are now separating them by the AP's count, and Hillary has even lost a net two since Super Tuesday. It's the kind of news that should calm any fears — or dash any hopes, as the case may be — about super-delegates deciding the nomination over the popular will.

Though 60 isn't negligible, there are still a lot of non-committed superdelegates out there.

Aww, Israel has them too! Right-wing nuts say earthquakes cause by homos

2008-02-21T14:12:00.002-05:00

Of course they are! From Andrew Sullivan:

An Israeli MP has blamed parliament's tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently. Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said the tremors had been caused by lawmaking that gave "legitimacy to sodomy".[...] He called on lawmakers to stop "passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes."

I mean, the guy's name is Shlomo. Maybe he's still bitter about being made fun of as a kid: "Shlomo the homo!"

Or maybe gays really do cause earthquakes. If so I want to learn how.

Dems' early voting in Texas primary 10 TIMES higher than in '04

2008-02-21T14:05:00.001-05:00

Wow... and this is good for Obama. And good for Dem chances in November (not that we *really* have a chance at Texas, but you never know):

Turnout on the first day of early voting was up all across Texas, according to initial numbers from the Secretary of State's office. But Houston and Dallas were off the charts — the numbers show a 10-fold increase over 2004. In Harris County four years ago, only 728 people showed up for the Democratic primary on the first day of early voting. Yesterday it was 9,243. In Dallas, the first-day turnout jumped from 913 in 2004 to 8,615 yesterday. That would seem good news for Obama. Other urban counties such as Travis (Austin) and Bexar (San Antonio) showed six-fold increases. In El Paso, it tripled.

The Onion asks locals what they think of Bush's abstinence AIDS policy

2008-02-21T13:31:00.002-05:00

Bush: Keep Abstinence In AIDS Plan

President Bush wants to keep a contested provision in his global AIDS package in which one-third of all prevention spending goes to abstinence education. What do you think?

"How much was allocated to dry-humping and finger-banging education?"
-Roger Davidson, Health Inspector

"This is fine as long as the other two-thirds is going towards funding cutting-edge abstinence research."
Amanda Troughton, Apartment Manager

"Exactly how much money does it cost to tell people not to have sex with each other?"
Duncan Pertwee, Library Aide

National news in a frenzy over McCain/Female Lobbyist story

2008-02-21T13:22:00.003-05:00

So if you are running as the up-standing, uncorrupt, anti-lobbyist and special interest candidate, this is not good. From the story of record, which broke this last night, the New York Times:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers. A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

I'm pretty sure we don't know enough to understand the full extent of this relationship--just close friends and colleagues? A bit more? A lot more? But regardless, being that close with a lobbyist while you are chair of the Senate Commerce Committee is not a good thing.

Mike Huckabee, who is still in the race against McCain, must be laughing that "miracles do happen" (when asked why he's in the race, that's his response...). How crazy would it be for Huck to get this afterall? And poor Mitt Romney; a day late and dollar short.

What a campaign............

PS: Considering all of this, I suppose it could be worse. In light of Mark Foley, Larry Craig, and the rest of the anti-gay gay Republicans, at least this lobbyist was a chick and not a dude!

Two very different campaigns, shown by CNN cutting from Obama's speech to McCain's

2008-02-13T22:43:00.002-05:00

You can see it in the YouTube below. At about minute 3:05 CNN's gay Anderson Cooper interrupts Obama's inspiring, energetic, new speech to switch over to McCain's victory speech (both candidates won all three Potomac primaries last night: DC, MD, and VA).

And what a speech McCain's was. He was speaking as if it were 1953 and the U.S. had just bowed to the imposing force of Red China and a nuclear USSR. Such gems as--and these are direct quotes--we are fighting people who "despise our freedom," the Democrats will try to "placate implacable foes," and America is "the last best hope on Earth."

Heavy. And I love the six old white men behind McCain compared to 17,000 people packed into an arena in University of Wisconsin. I need to send Obama more money.

Pretty funny--McCain parody of Obama's Hope YouTube

2008-02-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

The inspiring Obama video was making its way around the internet last week, and you can watch it here. But this post is for laughing. At McCain:

Yesterday's primary results--Obama sweeps, Hillary weeps (not really), and Huck surges

2008-02-10T11:31:00.000-05:00

I don't these results are what most expected; I didn't. Obama just destroyed Hillary in Louisiana, Nebraska, and Washington State. Said another way, all over the damn country. On the Republican side, the media narrative has definitely changed from "McCain is the nominee and just has to unify the party" to "Huckabee is winning primaries still? Potentially in the north?"

The details:

Kansas, GOP (100% reporting)
Huckabee - 60%
McCain - 24%
Paul - 11%
Louisiana, DEM (100% reporting)
Clinton - 36%
Obama - 57%
Louisiana, GOP (100% reporting)
Huckabee - 43%
McCain - 42%
Paul - 5%
Nebraska, DEM (99% reporting)
Clinton - 32%
Obama - 68%
Washington State, DEM (96% reporting)
Clinton - 31%
Obama - 68%
Washington State, GOP (87% reporting, too close to call)
Huckabee - 24%
McCain - 26%
Paul - 21%
Romney - 16%
Uncommitted - 13%

Josh Marshall says this say about the Republican WA State results, focusing on how this is not a good development for McCain:

First thing you have to note is that 74% of caucuses showed up to vote against their all-but-certain nominee. Romney's showing a couple days after dropping out of the race is pretty impressive. And uncommitted even put in a respectable number. The truth is that beside Huckabee's feeble candidate, of the remaining three, one has officially dropped out, another has said he's shifting his focus to his congressional campaign and the third isn't even a person.

Indeed.

Update: I forgot to mention this, but it is big news too: Tonight Obama won 103 delegates to Hillary's 58, putting the current total at 1,012 for Obama and 940 for Hillary. Now, that is just democratically elected delegates, not the Superdelegates that Hillary views as mana from heaven right now (see her pandering to them here. shocker.)

Um... what can you say about a headline like this

2008-02-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

Exclusive: Peace Corps, Fulbright Scholar Asked to 'Spy' on Cubans, Venezuelans

With the sub-headline: U.S. Embassy Official's 'Spy' Request Violated Long-Standing U.S. Policy. Indeed.

Whose bright idea was this? To ABC news:

"I was told to provide the names, addresses and activities of any Venezuelan or Cuban doctors or field workers I come across during my time here," Fulbright scholar John Alexander van Schaick told ABCNews.com in an interview in La Paz.

Van Schaick's account matches that of Peace Corps members and staff who claim that last July their entire group of new volunteers was instructed by the same U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia to report on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals. The State Department says any such request was "in error" and a violation of long-standing U.S. policy which prohibits the use of Peace Corps personnel or Fulbright scholars for intelligence purposes.

"We take this very seriously and want to stress this is not in any way our policy," a senior State Department official told ABCNews.com.

More Bush admin incompetency. is it 2009 yet? And by the way, this really hurts the global reputation of the Peace Corps, which has already been strained over the past five years due to the war in Iraq, and, um, Bush.

Just finished Andrew Sullivan's "The Conservative Soul"

2008-02-09T15:53:00.000-05:00

And I strongly recommend it.

I am a big fan of Andrew Sullivan's blog, and actually expected this book to have a similar feel--insightful and often clever political analysis, commentary, and editorializing. Instead, this book goes into political philosophy of theoconservative fundamentalists who have extreme influence in today's Republican party and then explains his own views and philosophy (with much greater effect, of course). Very readable, the book also touched on important moment's in Sullivan's life and how we has grown over the years.

Here is a representative paragraph, on nothing less than the U.S. Constitution:

A constitution does something quite miraculous in human affairs, and few constitutions have been as miraculous as America's. What it does in the brutal world of competing human interest and opinions is to change the subject. Instead of focusing on what a polity is for, what meaning it is supposed to represent, which virtues it is supposed to inculcate, a constitution restricts itself to pure procedure. It doesn't tell us what purpose to give our own country or what purpose to give ourselves. It merely says what the state cannot do, and leaves the rest to us. It is a supremely negative piece of positive action. Instead of instructing us what we should do with our lives, it restricts itself to telling us how we do it.

Romney quits race after spending $35 million of his own money on failure

2008-02-08T11:15:00.001-05:00

For half a second I felt bad for him, and then I heard about what he said in his departure speech:

Groans erupted among members of the Conservative Political Action Conference gathered in a packed hotel ballroom as Romney announced his withdrawal. To stay in the race, he said, would make it easier for a Democrat to win, "and in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

What a douchebag. Yes, a Democrat being elected will be "surrendering to terror". Bush and the Republicans have done so well dealing with al Qaida and getting the world to hate us, they can really talk.

And Mitt, feel proud that you lost to a man who your party hates. Congrats!

Obama beats Clinton in number of states won with 60+ percent of the vote, 8-1

2008-02-06T20:45:00.000-05:00

DailyKos brings up a good point in a long post about how Obama unequivocally won last night. And then he cites this, which is impressive:

States Obama won with (so far) more than 60% of the vote:

Alaska (over 70%)
Colorado
Georgia
Idaho (over 70%)
Illinois
Kansas (over 70%)
Minnesota
North Dakota

States Clinton won with (so far) more than 60% of the vote:

Arkansas

Super Tuesday reaction: The Dems

2008-02-06T13:28:00.000-05:00

Unlike the Republican side, there really wasn't a known Wednesday morning headline other than that it was going to be very, very close. And it was--as illustrated in many ways but among them that:

Of all the votes cast on Super Tuesday for the two candidates nationwide, the two candidates are only separated by 0.4 of a percentage point. By midday Wednesday, 14,645,638 votes were reported cast for either Obama or Clinton on Tuesday. Clinton had won 7,295,400 of those votes (50.2 percent) while Obama captured 7,295,400 votes (49.8 percent).

Yeah, kind of insane. Add to this that most Dem races shattered records for turnout; in the North, South, Midwest, and West Coast. We're pumped up. In terms of delegates secured (the Dems' delegates are given more or less proportionally to how well you did in the state), it looks like Obama just eked out a win:

Based on a wide variety of sources, right now it's at Clinton 670, Obama 650, but still with 210 to be allocated from California, 47 from Illinois, and smaller amounts elsewhere.

Then, going state by state, this is how it played out (New Mexico is still too close to call):

Obama: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota, and Missouri.

Clinton: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

What does it all mean? Practically, we still have a long way to go. And it might come down to the decisions to be made by the hundreds of superdelegates who get to vote for whomever they want at the convention. Ah, but I will say one thing: For the first time in the campaign I think a Clinton-Obama ticket is actually possible. We will see.

Super Tuesday reaction: The Repubs

2008-02-06T12:48:00.000-05:00

Going into yesterday, the conventional wisdom seemed to say that Super Tuesday would most likely entail McCain winning almost all Republican contests (the question being by how much), with the remaining going to Mitt Romney, and potentially one or two to Mike Huckabee. The storyline for Wednesday was pre-written as "McCain solidifies his front-runner status; nearing enough delegates to clinch the nomination." Instead, lots of successful McCain stories, but always with a caveat, such was the Washington Post's McCain Wins Big States; Huckabee, Romney Live, or the New York Times' Arizona Senator Surges; Huckabee Strong in the South. Here are the results themselves (most states were winner take all on the Republican side):

Mike Huckabee: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia

John McCain: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma

Mitt Romney: Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Utah

What strikes me as interesting is that there are some trends -- McCain wins the big states, Huckabee wins the South -- it also just seems kind of random, particularly on Romney's side (exceptions being Mormon Utah and his "home state" of Mass.) But regardless, what this shows is a party truly divided. McCain's inability to win big last night, though albeit with a win at the end of the day, illustrates this. And then you have people like James Dobson of Focus on the [heterosexual, nuclear, preferably white] Family saying things like this:

I'm deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, who organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.

I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.

Apparently he's not a fan of McCain. This is not over yet; I'm hoping that the Huckabee-McCain detente will end soon as Huck tries to exploit the religious rights' apparent aversion to McCain, and McCain fights back calling out Huckabee for the cave man perspective he holds when it comes to social issues and tax policy. We'll see.

Lima photo essay 2

2008-02-05T15:00:00.000-05:00

Click on the pictures for larger versions.

National Cathedral, Plaza de Armas, Lima.

Peruvian houses, north of the river, Lima.

City bus.

Graffiti, on the way to the beach.

Surfing at the pier, on the Pacific Ocean.

Super Tuesday is upon us

2008-02-05T14:48:00.000-05:00

East Coast polls close in the next four or five hours, and then polls throughout the country will close during the following hours as almost half the electorate votes on which candidate from which party will end up facing the other in November. On the Dem side, it promises to be a very close race through and through. And with proportional award of electors (usually by whichever candidate wins each congressional district) it is unlikely that either Hillary or Obama will have enough to clinch the nomination.

On the Republican side, most state contests are winner take all, and McCain looks very strong (though I wouldn't discount Romney getting just enough votes to stay in this thing). Already, the conservative coalition is cracking, with many fundamentalist (and some mainstream) conservatives saying no way to McCain. One of the kings of the gay/abortion choice/science/etc. hatred, James Dobson, had this to say:

With John McCain on the verge of winning the Republican nomination, the once-complacent anti-McCain forces on the right are getting louder than ever. This morning, James Dobson released a statement to Laura Ingraham's radio show, declaring that under no circumstances would he support McCain in the general election — a potential blow to the Arizona senator, since it could discourage turnout among some evangelical voters.

Meanwhile, John McCain decided to answer a number of articles that have been circulating about how many Republican colleagues in the Senate are not particularly fond of him:

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) took a swipe Tuesday at GOP senators who have criticized him during the presidential campaign, saying they “are not the most respected members of the United States Senate.”

McCain, who is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination heading into the Super Tuesday primaries, was referring to comments made by five-term Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.). “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Cochran had told The Boston Globe after his endorsement of McCain’s main rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”

This is going to be fun to watch.

Thank you Al Gore, for supporting marriage equality

2008-02-03T19:17:00.000-05:00

The former vice president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Oscar winner, and leader Al Gore recently posted a video on Huffington Post where he eloquently states that he supports marriage equality today:

Lima photo essay 1

2008-02-03T13:33:00.000-05:00

I was in Lima for a week for work, but had time to do some photography.

The view from my hotel window.

Miraflores municipal center at night.

Paragliders flying along the Lima coastline.

Steeple and statue in the Plaze de Armas.

Sometimes a principled arch-conservative is better than you'd expect

2008-02-03T13:10:00.000-05:00

In this case, I'm talking about Senator Tom Colburn of Oklahoma, who, among other things as I recall was worried that it was dangerous to use a girls restroom in Oklahoma due to "rampant lesbianism in our public schools" and believes both evolution and global warming are complete farces.

Anyway, then he goes and does something like this, calling upon his Majority Leader, the loser Mitch McConnel of Kentucky, to investigate some major sketchy behavior by the less-than-ethical Republican Representative Don Young from Alaska:

We may finally get some answers about how Rep. Don Young (R-AK) managed to change the text of a bill after it was passed by Congress in order to benefit a major campaign contributor.

In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) called for the creation of a select committee comprised of both representatives and senators to investigate the miraculous change to the 2005 transportation bill.

To review the circumstances of Young's extra-Constitutional wizardry: Young, then the chairman of the House transportation committee, inserted a $10 million earmark to widen I-75 in Florida's Collier and Lee Counties in the 2005 bill. The project was supported by local officials. That was the version passed by Congress. But because of Young's unique position, he was able to make a crucial change: the bill later signed by the President had different language, directing the $10 million to an I-75 interchange at Coconut Road. That project had been opposed by local officials, but aggressively backed by real estate mogul Daniel Aronoff, who'd thrown a $40,000 fundraiser for Young that year.

Yeah, sketchy. Coburn also hates government spending--justified or unjustified. Hence going after this on principle that the taxpayers' money should not be wasted. Amen.

Two days to Super Tuesday

2008-02-03T12:43:00.000-05:00

And things are interesting. I found a blog that is tracking presidential convention committed delegates--both the caucus/primary chosens ones and the superdelegates who get to pick who they choose. The current standings have Clinton ahead overall with 243 to Obama's 169. But without counting superdelegates, Obama is ahead 63 to 48. But you need 2025 delegates to win the nomination, and so we have a long way to go. But then again, Super Tuesday is coming up. I need to send Obama some money.

Hillary campaign really does play the worst kind of politics...

2008-01-23T21:25:00.001-05:00

...which finally helps me understand the true hatred the right has for the Clintons. It is a hatred that runs deeper than just disagreement--I think it is of jealousy. Clinton campaigns work. But they work by going after the least common denominators, their ability to take supreme advantage of the news cycle and the all-too-predictable reaction of the idiot main-stream press, and their choice to use their opponents' advantages against them.

They have used this well so far against Obama, and the most obvious success is that over the past week Obama has been off his game. Defending himself against the Bill/Hillary attacks, getting off his message of hope through progressive policy and honest politics (for the most part).

And here is the latest from the Clintons. A radio ad so stupid that it shouldn't pass the laugh test. But these people know Americans, and they know this will sadly work:

VOICE-OVER: “Listen to Barack Obama last week talking about Republicans.

BARACK OBAMA: “The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.”

VO: “Really? Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today? Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama’s talking about?”

Yes, right. Obama is basically Reagan conservative... am I missing something??

Barack Obama 2008.

On Heath's death

2008-01-23T20:57:00.000-05:00

Like many others, I am saddened by Heath Ledger's death, be it accidental or suicidal. At first I felt like the people who you always see on TV after a celelbrity dies. I loved him on The OC so much, I just can't believe he's dead. But then I realized there was something more about Heath Ledger, and it was Brokeback Mountain. I defer to AndrewSullivan:

Gay men responded to Ledger and not just because he was surpassingly handsome. He really inhabited a dark place many of us escaped from, and he evoked it with enormous restraint and integrity. The darkness clearly haunted him, but he turned it into a thing of beauty and redemption. For a while.

Thank you, for that, Heath. Rest in peace.

Here are excerpts from a very well written New York Times appraisal:

The defining performance of Heath Ledger’s tragically foreshortened career — more or less equivalent to what Jim Stark in “Rebel Without a Cause” was for James Dean — will surely be the role of Ennis Del Mar in “Brokeback Mountain.”

A portrait of inarticulate love and thwarted desire, Ennis is a rich, complicated character succinctly sketched in Annie Proulx’s original short story and brought to heartbreaking life by the film’s screenwriters, Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry; by its director, Ang Lee; and above all by Mr. Ledger himself. Outwardly, Ennis presents a familiar image of rough-hewn Western masculinity, and the longing that surges under his taciturn demeanor does not so much contradict this image as help to explain it. Ennis’s love for Jack Twist, whom he meets tending sheep on a Wyoming mountaintop in the early 1960s, takes Ennis by surprise and throws him permanently off balance. His lifelong silence, the film suggests, is less a sign of strength than of cowardice, a crippling inability to acknowledge or communicate the truth of his own feelings.

What made the performance so remarkable was that Mr. Ledger, without betraying Ennis’s dignity or his reserve, was nonetheless able to convey that truth to the audience. This kind of sensitivity — the ability to signal an inner emotional state without overtly showing it — is what distinguishes great screen acting from movie-star posing. And while Mr. Ledger was handsome enough, and famous enough, to be called a movie star, he was serious enough, and smart enough, to be suspicious of deploying his charisma too easily or cheaply....

Mr. Ledger’s work will outlast the frenzy. But there should have been more. Instead of being preserved as a young star eclipsed in his prime, he should have had time to outgrow his early promise and become the strange, surprising, era-defining actor he always had the potential to be.

Lima blogging

2008-01-23T20:52:00.000-05:00

I am spending a week in Lima, Peru on a work trip meeting with some government offices and local NGOs. It's great being in this Southern Hemisphere coastal city--i.e. it's summer in January and the ocean breeze is somewhat constant. Having arrived yesterday, my first impressions of Lima are that it is seemingly an underrated South American city. I'll have more to say on the other side, along with pictures of course. Now for some politics blogging I can't stay away from even thousands of miles away from the U.S.

DoucheWatch: Um... Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to meet "God's standards"

2008-01-17T12:26:00.000-05:00

And by that of course he means his interpretation of God's standards. What a douchebag. Anyway, this news is a few days old but definitely worth a post. Go Huckster!

At a Michigan campaign event last night, Mike Huckabee gave an interesting reason for why he wants to amend the Constitution to ban both abortion and gay marriage: Otherwise, the Constitution would be in conflict with God. Huckabee first observed that some of his opponents don't want to amend the Constitution on both of these topics. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God," Huckabee said. "And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

Neat and gross: Eight-foot rodent fossil found in Uruguay

2008-01-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

Dios:

Imagine a rodent that weighed a ton and was as big as a bull. Uruguayan scientists say they have uncovered fossil evidence of the biggest species of rodent ever found, one that scurried across wooded areas of South America about 4 million years ago, when the continent was not connected to North America. A herbivore, the beast may have been a contemporary, and possibly prey, of saber-toothed cats.

For those afraid of rodents, forget hopping on a chair. Its huge skull, more than 20 inches long, suggested a beast more than eight feet long and weighing between 1,700 and 3,000 pounds.

There was a Democratic debate last night?

2008-01-16T18:56:00.000-05:00

Apparently so: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama debated last night, and it was dull. That's what the internets are saying, and while I did not watch it I watched TPM's video summary of it. Check it out; it includes the verbal, public truce between Obama and Clinton regarding race and gender. Thank god for that, I just hope it lasts.

Provoking article: explaining homosexuality through "eusociality"

2008-01-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

Right, I didn't know what that meant either. Here is the introduction to a very interesting and I'd say controversial article on the biology of homosexuality:

Only by conceiving of evolution as acting upon entire populations rather than individual organisms can we understand eusociality -- the mysterious, seemingly "altruistic" behaviors exhibited by insects who forego reproduction in order to care for a colony's young. So says Edward O. Wilson, the legendary sociobiologist, environmentalist and entomologist, in an article published in the January issue of Bioscience.

The author then goes into how this line of reason could lead to a potential explanation for the presence of homosexuality (which many seek to explain, as from a purely evolutionary biology perspective, it doesn't make sense for us gays not to procreate with women, but no thanks!). I think the conclusions are not well stated below, but oh well, the ideas are still worth reading:

Wilson thinks eusociality evolved as a group-level adaptation for out-competing other insect colonies for food: with some colony members devoted to protecting eggs and larva, others could forage farther abroad. All that's needed to take this evolutionary step is the rise of a gene -- or system of genes -- that makes workers want to stay home and help rather than leave the colony and reproduce elsewhere. The theory is far from settled. No such allele has been identified, and theoretical biologists haven't been able to model it....

So with all necessary caveats against reductionism and misappropriation, we can ask: should human societies conceive of themselves in terms of group-level selection? Have we already developed aspects of eusociality? And -- just to make matters really interesting -- could non-reproducing humans, such as (most) gays and lesbians, as well as heterosexuals who choose not to have kids, actually be a manifestation of this emergent eusociality?

Citing eusociality in defense of any lifestyle choice, even theoretically, could backfire: it implies a subservience of individual well-being to the greater good. But at least it suggests that certain unorthodox lifestyles might not be so "unnatural" after all.

Obama cleaning up endorsements, and I bet there are more to come

2008-01-13T15:33:00.001-05:00

From TalkingPointsMemo, an interesting analysis:

Endorsements don't usually count for much. But if they're big enough and come at critical moments they can count for a lot. And this string of endorsements Obama has picked up since his narrow defeat in New Hampshire four days ago is, I believe, a major story that has not gotten the attention it deserves.

Since losing the New Hampshire primary four days ago, Obama has been endorsed by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ). Additionally, he's also been endorsed by Rep. Miller (D-CA), Sen. Kerry (D-MA) and Ned Lamont. But they're in a slightly different category and it's the first four I want to discuss...

But now you have three others -- Nelson, Napolitano and McCaskill. Nelson and Johnson are from very red states while Napolitano and McCaskill are from swing states.
Now, there are a bunch of things you can draw from this spate of endorsements. One is that these folks don't seem worried about themselves running or having their supporters run with Obama at the top of the ticket. And these are people from either very conservative or somewhat conservative states. Despite the fact that Obama is running in some ways to the right of Clinton (at least tonally, as the candidate of unity and bipartisan reconcilation), there are still a lot of questions inevitably being asked about whether the country is 'ready' for Obama, whether that's his race, his name, his background in community organizing, his youth, etc. So these folks think America's ready; in fact, more ready than they are for Hillary.

But that isn't the biggest significance. The key is timing. You don't hit a big time politician like Hillary Clinton when she's down unless you're really against her and you're fairly confident she's not getting back up. After winning in New Hampshire, albeit narrowly and after the clobbering in Iowa, there's been a sense that Clinton may be back on track to consolidating her frontrunner status and perhaps following a modified version of the standard script in which the anointed frontrunner gets a scare in the early states before mopping up the competition as the race goes national. But these four clearly don't want that to happen. In fact, they're sticking their necks pretty far out to help make it not happen. And their endorsements, coming right now, tell me they have some confidence it won't.

Awesome--Republican faction leaders slicing eachothers' throats

2008-01-11T09:02:00.000-05:00

Chris Matthews interviews the leader of the quintessentially social conservative organization the Family Research Council and the head of the quintessentially big money conservative organization the Club for Growth. What happens is not pretty, and I love it:

Congratulations Hillary: Now we have a race

2008-01-10T09:35:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night's results from New Hampshire, with Hillary beating Obama by three points, with Mr. Son-of-a-millworker John Edwards a distant third. While I am firmly in the Obama camp, I am actually pleased with the results for two reasons. First, this means we will have a real campaign on our hands in the primary; which I hope allows the eventual nominee to be increasingly polished. (Though on the flip-side, if things get nasty then we could have a divided party--which must be avoided.) Second, it is a good thing that Hillary--and the Clinton machine--have saved face with the NH win. This is important because we do not want the Clinton machine going after one of our own as a wounded dog. They can be ruthless and pursue the lowest common denominator any day of the week, but when their Democratic Party pride is on the line, I would imagine that would go all out against Obama. Again, must be avoided.

So, we shall see what happens in Nevada, South Carolina, and beyond. I've pasted below a YouTube TPMtv roundup of Hillary's last five days in NH:

Mitt Romney: What could have been?

2008-01-07T11:20:00.000-05:00

RealClearPolitics has a great article with the basic premise:

It's one thing to lose as you are. What you lose is an election, but there's always another election and in the case of presidential primary politics, a new electorate that awaits you in the next state. It's another thing to lose as you aren't. Mitt Romney was never the 700 Club right-winger his campaign managers conceived. He was and is a man of business and a very capable one at that.

Romney has been running as a pro-life, anti-gay, pro-torture, anti-Constitution, pro-ethanol, anti-immigrant; well, you get the point. But he governed as a socially moderate, economically conservative (but not nutty--he expanded health care for the poor and middle class in Massachusetts; teaming with Ted Kennedy no less) Republican in a blue state.

But alas, he went for the lowest common denominator and is now losing even in his home-state neighbor New Hampshire. We'll see what happens tomorrow with the primary. But as a partisan Democrat, I am relieved that he took the Neanderthal route in place of the moderate route. Then we could have had a real competitor in the general election...

Go Huckabee!

Obama on the power of rhetoric, when it is based on substance

2008-01-06T14:09:00.001-05:00

Speaking of the power of rhetoric...:

Fox News too deplorable even to a state Republican Party

2008-01-05T19:54:00.000-05:00

Haha, this has a poetic justice in it. And you have to give the leadership of the New Hampshire Republican Party some credit for taking a stand on something ridiculous like Fox News' decision to ban Ron Paul from the presidential debate tomorrow:

UnionLeader.com has learned that the New Hampshire Republican Party has quit as a co-sponsor of tomorrow night's nationally televised GOP forum on FOX News. The 8 p.m. event at Saint Anselm College -- the last debate before Tuesday's primary -- had become controversial when FOX refused to include Ron Paul.

Well, now some Republicans are learning that "it's OK if you are the right kind of Republican." Ron Paul doesn't fit the Republican gatekeepers' idea of GOP orthodoxy, so despite the fact that he's outraising and outpolling several other contenders, they're excluding him from the debate.

George Will (of all people) verbalizes what pisses me off so much about Edwards

2008-01-05T19:49:00.000-05:00

Will being a conservative columnist (though one who chooses to exercise the use of his brain), he hits this on the head, not to mention a great strike on Huckabee:

According to Edwards, the North Carolina of his youth resembled Chechnya today -- "I had to fight to survive. I mean really. Literally." Huckabee, a compound of Uriah Heep, Elmer Gantry and Richard Nixon, preens about his humble background: "In my family, 'summer' was never a verb." Nixon, who maundered about his parents' privations and his wife's cloth coat, followed Lyndon Johnson, another miscast president whose festering resentments and status anxieties colored his conduct of office. Here we go again?

Huckabee fancies himself persecuted by the Republican "establishment," a creature already negligible by 1964, when it failed to stop Barry Goldwater's nomination. The establishment's voice, the New York Herald Tribune, expired in 1966. Huckabee says that "only one explanation" fits his Iowa success "and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people." God so loves Huckabee's politics that He worked a Midwest miracle on his behalf? Should someone so delusional control nuclear weapons?...

Although Huckabee and Edwards profess to loathe and vow to change Washington's culture, each would aggravate its toxicity. Each overflows with and wallows in the pugnacity of the self-righteous who discern contemptible motives behind all disagreements with them and who therefore think that opponents are enemies and differences are unsplittable.

And he ends with this attack on the entire liberal establishment (cue conservative music):

Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee -- an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic "fights" against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.

On McCain and Romney in New Hampshire

2008-01-04T14:11:00.001-05:00

Apparently some pundits are already ruling out Huckabee in New Hampshire due to his Neanderthal positions on social issues (believes Adam and Eve literally ate the apple, gays are as bad as people who have sex with dead bodies, no abortion ever, etc.). Regardless, here's a good quote of the day comparing McCain and Romney:

I was in a bar tonight watching the results come in and a pundit came on the TV and said "the people of New Hampshire have two very different candidates." This was followed quickly by a native Bostonian in the bar who blurted out "Yeah, one's a wah'r hero and the other's a douchebag." I think he hit it right on the nose.

The day after: Obama and Huckabee win big in Iowa

2008-01-04T13:49:00.000-05:00

The results speak for themselves, at many levels. First, the numbers.

Dems:
Obama - 38%
Edwards - 30%
Hillary - 29%
Richardson - 2%
Biden - 1%
The Rest - well, 0%

Repubs:
Huckabee - 34%
Romney - 25%
Thompson - 13%
McCain - 13%
Paul - 10%
Giuliani - 3%
The Rest - see above

The big headlines I'd say are (1) Obama rules by crushing, relatively speaking, Edwards and Hillary; (2) Huckabee turned out the evangelical base and the remaining mainstream Republicans couldn't decide on Romney, Thompson, and McCain; (3) Paul did well, garnering ten percent--doesn't seem like much, but as a virulently anti-establishment candidate, this is impressive; (4) Giuliani blows ass, but had this great quotation about it: ""None of this worries me -- Sept. 11, there were times I was worried" HAHAHA. Good luck in New Hampshire!; and (5) turn-out was huge including among the young (see: Obama) and evangelical (see: Huckabee). But even better, the Dems beat Repubs in turnout this year 239,000 to merely 117,000. Democrats also almost doubled turnout between 2004 and 2008.

Now on to New Hampshire, four days away!

Go Obama.

Charming: Candidate's surrogate says Romney will protect America from "militant gays"

2008-01-03T13:17:00.000-05:00

I've heard of militant tops and militant bottoms, but I don't think that's necessarily what former MO (ha--I meant Missouri) Senator Jim Talent was referring to when defending his ally's anti-gay record. I've posted in full from Think Progress below. But first I just want to say that is it too hard to accept that there are more pressing issues facing our country then with whom and in what way I have sex? It sounds so ridiculous to write that out, but it is quite literally what they are trying to do. Get-a-life. And go down in flames in Iowa, of course.

Enough of my rant, onto the news:

Today on MSNBC’s Hardball, former senator Jim Talent, now an adviser to Mitt Romney, discussed Romney’s record on gays. Talent maintained that Romney has never been inconsistent on gay rights and has “always” wanted to stop the influence of “the militant gays”:

He’s always had the same position as to regards to the gay agenda. Look, he wants to know people to know he values gay people as people, okay? But he doesn’t want the militant gays to be able to change the cultural institutions of the country.

And actually Chris Matthews does very well in calling Romney out as the soulless panderer that he is. Here's the video, and please note the sparkle in Jim's eye when he says "militant gays". How endearing:

National poll has five-way tie among Republicans

2008-01-01T16:17:00.001-05:00

Of course national polls don't matter much, given our primary process. But they still measure the national mood pretty well. And Republicans do not seem to agree on what they want:

For the first time all year, Sen. John McCain leads a national Rasmussen tracking poll for the Republican presidential nomination. Nonetheless, his lead of 17% is not statistically significant since his rivals are all within the poll's margin of error. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are just a point behind at 16% and Rudy Giuliani is two points back at 15%. Slightly off the pace, but still within five points of McCain, is Fred Thompson at 12%. In the hypothetical national primary, it's a statistical tie among five candidates.

Heading into Iowa, it's a three-way Dem tie

2008-01-01T16:14:00.000-05:00

Who knows what will happen, but I'm crossing my fingers for Obama:

Among Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton leads with 31% followed by Sen. Barack Obama at 27% and John Edwards at 21%. The poll has a margin of error of 4 points.Key finding: Clinton has dropped 7 points in two weeks while Edwards has gained 6 points and Obama has gained 3 points. Undeclared voters provide positive playback for Edwards based on his television advertising running in New Hampshire and this is reflected in the ballot results. Edwards now leads Obama among undeclared voters 38% to 23%.

Fox News: the reach a new low and bar Ron Paul from their debate

2008-01-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

Classy. It's funny because while they won't let Ron Paul in, they do let snoozefest Fred Thompson in, who actually is lower than Paul in the polls! Ha:

Paul has twice the support of Thompson in New Hampshire. He has raised much more money than Thompson and has more ability to last into the campaign. On what basis is he excluded? New Hampshire may well be his moment. And Fox seems determined to stop him.

Mike Huckabee doesn't back down from equating homos to people who have sex with dead people

2008-01-01T16:08:00.001-05:00

He's a keeper! Seriously, not only is that just stupid, but it's just arrogant. Oh really, I'm a sinner? F*ck you. Anyway, I think Wonkette summarizes my position pretty well:

The danger with sex today, people, is that homosexuality is one of many “publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations.” Other publicly endorsed aberrations, according to Huckles, include sadomasochism, pedophilia and necrophilia. Ok, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these Christian conservative types? Does anyone else, anywhere, spend this much time thinking about other people having sex that isn’t doing so in order to masturbate, plan their next porno, or write for Fleshbot? Let alone, does anyone spend this much time equating the guy-on-guy anal action with fucking dead people, little kids or animals? Like, how does that even occur to you? Candidates are being assassinated in Pakistan and people are dying in Kenya over rigged elections and thousands of Americans and Iraqis are dead in Iraq because of a war we started for (apparently) no good reason and their feeble little minds are totally filled with thoughts of how God doesn’t want people to to engage in ass fucking because you can’t have babies? Jeebus Motherfucking Christ, I’m ready to start drinking now. Bring on the New Motherfucking Year.

2008 upon us

2008-01-01T16:06:00.001-05:00

This is final year of the worst presidency in recent memory, perhaps in U.S. history. No matter which person wins this November, we are almost assured to have an improvement over what we have survived for eight years. Now, let the primaries begin.

Michelle Obama: Wow

2007-12-29T13:24:00.000-05:00

Watch this video (via AS). I'm moved and wowed. If she were First Lady, I would be proud:

A Republican on Hillary-Obama choice

2007-12-29T13:11:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan is one of my favorite bloggers, but I get very annoyed how much he is obsessed with disliking Hillary Clinton. But on occasion, he brings some substance to this choice that I personally have gone back and forth on (and still am not sure who I ultimately will support). Here is an 'email from a reader' which I find pretty insightful, and worriedly salient:

A Republican writes:

A party that is as motivated by revanchist impulse as today’s Democratic Party
cannot bring itself to transcend its anger. That is why Hillary will survive the Obama insurgency.
Yes, Obama would beat us, bad. We would hemorrhage Republican women and a significant number of conservatives would vote Obama to teach the Republicans in Washington not to deviate from Reagan and Goldwater. We would be forced to return to first principles, and we would.
But that is not what Democrats want. They do not see this opportunity. All they see is Bush, and they are obsessed with the man who will not be running in 2008.
This is what we are counting on. We instantly understand that Hillary controls the money. Hillary controls the Superdelegates. Hillary controls the Party Apparatus. Hillary knows that her base voters are more filled with anger at Bush than they are with hope for the future and change for all the American people.

Ron Paul on Meet the Press: From non-interventionist to isolationist

2007-12-28T15:31:00.000-05:00

You can watch Ron Paul's entire interview here. While I already commented on his opposition to the U.S. civil war, he also stated if he were president right now he would let the Pakistanis figure things out for themselves without attempting to affect the outcome (he had no answer to "what if radicals take over and gain control of the country's nuclear missiles), and asserted that it would not be a problem to eliminate the income tax (no comment on how much spending really would need to be cut). All in all, it wasn't that great. I also thought Tim Russert did well with tough but fair questioning. If only he would do the same with mainstream candidates.

On Pakistani opposition leader Bhutto's assassination

2007-12-28T15:21:00.000-05:00

Upon seeing the news on CNN.com yesterday, I shuddered at the implications. Pakistan is of incredible importance to U.S. security, the war on terror, and nuclear diplomacy. While Bhutto was known for corruption when she was Prime Minister, she was also a voice in 2007 for official secularism, democracy, and the rule of law. Thus, her death is a loss to Pakistan and to the world. The latest:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was buried at her ancestral village in southern Pakistan on Friday as riots that began after her assassination on Thursday continued across the country, leaving 23 people dead, including four security officers.

The government laid the blame for the combined shooting and suicide bomb attack on a militant with ties to Al Qaeda, and ordered the army deployed to Ms. Bhutto’s home province of Sindh, where the worst violence occurred, including parts of the city of Karachi, as the protests descended into criminality and banks were ransacked, train carriages and cars set on fire, and shops looted and burned.

The government ordered an almost complete shutdown of services to try to prevent the violence from spreading. Officials suspended train services between Karachi and the Punjab province to the east, and most domestic flights were canceled. Gas stations across the country were closed, making it virtually impossible to make a journey by car any great distance. Roads were closed around the city centers where trouble was anticipated, and television and Internet services were down or only sporadic in most cities. With many Bhutto supporters openly blaming the government for the assassination, the Interior Ministry made the surprising announcement that Ms. Bhutto had died not from gunshots or shrapnel but from a skull fracture when she was thrown by the force of the suicide attack and hit her head on a lever of the car sun roof. Two high-level inquiries are being conducted into her death: one headed by the senior judiciary and one by high-level police and intelligence officials, said Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

All eyes on Pakistan. I sure as hell hope that U.S. intelligence knows where their nukes are right now.

"If it means sacrificing our lives, if it means sacrificing our liberties to save Pakistan, then we are prepared to risk our lives and we are prepared to risk our liberties, but we are not prepared to surrender our great nation to the militants," - Benazir Bhutto, via AndrewSullivan

McCain returning to Iowa after effectively giving up there

2007-12-24T15:48:00.000-05:00

A New Year's surprise for/from McCain? Given the sad state of the Republican field, this may actually happen. Posted in full from TPMelectioncentral:

Is John McCain the GOP candidate to be watching right now? His upcoming public schedule just landed in our in-box, and it tells us that McCain is planning a big three-day campaign swing through Iowa right after Christmas. This is interesting, because McCain had all but completely written off Iowa before, touting New Hampshire as the first state where he would make a real stand. But here he is returning to Iowa.

Why? If you look at Pollster.com's chart of Iowa polling for the GOP primary, you can see that with Rudy and Fred Thompson currently dropping in the state, McCain stands at least a shot at coming in third, behind Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. For McCain to come in third in a state he'd almost entirely given up on in advance would be a clear victory for him.

"That would be huge for us, though we really have our work cut out for us," one McCain adviser says, summarizing the (hopeful) thinking in the McCain camp. "Because the perception had been that we and Iowa had written each other off."

Pre-Christmas Sunday Talk Show Roundup

2007-12-24T15:42:00.000-05:00

From TPMTV, always well put together and particularly today. Highlights: Ron Paul says we shouldn't have fought the civil war to end slavery, the conservatives are depressed about the Repub candidates, and Rudy Giuliani is a douchebag! Watch and enjoy:

Lieberman to endorse Republican McCain

2007-12-16T18:10:00.001-05:00

Well, while I hate Joe Lieberman, this doesn't come as a surprise and doesn't really bother me. Although McCain is definitely to the right of Lieberman on abortion, gay rights, and many other social issues. But honestly, it is Lieberman that is to the right of McCain on torture and even Iran (though McCain ain't great there either). Anyway, the news from CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat turned Independent, will endorse Republican Sen. John McCain for president, officials close to both Lieberman and McCain familiar with the plan tell CNN.

And the potential implications of it from Andrew Sullivan:

Mike Allen notes:

The announcement looks like an effort to stem a stream of independents moving to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

McCain is already enjoying a mini-surge in New Hampshire, which is not Huckafriendly. This could help bring more momentum. But it may not help McCain nationally, reinforcing his maverick, bipartisan independent appeal that the Christianist base suspects so much. It seems to me more generally to be the solidification of that sliver in national politics that still believes that the Iraq occupation has advanced the security of the United States, and is still eager for the occupation to become permanent. It also seems to me to be another piece of good news for Clinton. She has to prevent Obama from becoming a dominant figure in New Hampshire. His appeal to independents could sink her campaign. McCain has just helped her. Whether he has done so in a tangible way in this campaign has yet to be shown.

Understatement of the day

2007-12-16T17:49:00.000-05:00

"This is an administration that frankly does not have a good track record of policing itself. We intend to go forward and issue subpoenas next week because we are a whole equal branch of government."

-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, via DailyKos, on how the House Intelligence Committee will continue to investigate the CIA torture scandal and cover-up. Good.

The coming Obama smear campaign: "He's a Muslim!"

2007-12-15T17:36:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan writes posts an email from a reader on brewing attacks on Obama:

I live in a conservative county just north of Atlanta and just wanted to let you know I am beginning to hear the rough sketches of the smears that will be used against Obama in this region. Most of them revolve around Obama being a Muslim and not just a Muslim but a terrorist sympathizer. This is not just an aberration. I have now heard this from a handful of family members and friends. I got into a shouting match with my mother last night due to her accusing Obama of being a Muslim. I have also received a few emails from right wing lunatics in my extended family.

The scary part is these are smart people. They are college educated and make six figure incomes. The anti-intellectualism in this area is off the charts and is truly terrifying. How can you argue with someone that accuses Barack Obama of sympathizing with terrorists? If the election comes down to Huckabee vs. Obama I am afraid we will enter into a new dimension of Christianist based politics. A more dangerous and potentially catastrophically divisive dimension.

How stupid. Why would you make up a story that Obama is a closet Muslim? Who would believe that? I'm sorry but I know these people are stupid and horrible, but this?

Heh

2007-12-15T17:34:00.000-05:00

An Andrew Sullivan quote of the day:

"We misspelled the word misspelled twice, as mispelled, in the Corrections and clarifications column on September 26, page 30."

Edging away from Hillary and back towards Obama

2007-12-08T13:56:00.000-05:00

Hillary is simply becoming less appealing by the day. People really do seem to strongly, strongly dislike her. She really never answers any question ever. She was dead wrong on Iraq which she voted to authorize in 2002 for purely political reasons (and her instincts were dead wrong too).

And then there's Obama. He's done some things to piss me off for sure. But people like him. Many Republicans do and many many independents do. He is actually inspiring and honest about most things. I like his fierce diplomacy and willingness to talk to dictators. He won't be a wimp about it, he will be strong and stern.

Unfortunately, as a Washington State voter who won't be in the state for our caucuses, I won't be able to vote. But maybe I'll give him some money. We'll see.

South Park on Mormons

2007-12-08T13:51:00.000-05:00

In honor of Mitt Romney, presidential candidate. Straight from AndrewSullivan:

It's time to impeach Bush immediately: CIA has destroyed evidence of U.S. war crimes

2007-12-08T13:36:00.000-05:00

I miss the Constitution and our democracy. But here we are: The CIA has admitted to torturing human beings (albeit very, very bad human beings most likely), and has admitted to destroying video tapes of it. Amazing:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

And then there is our president, now assuredly one of the worst three presidents in our history--and that is erring on the pro-Bush side. He quaintly has "no recollection" of the tapes. Great defense:

U.S. President George W. Bush "has no recollection" of videotapes of CIA interrogations of some al Qaeda suspects or of plans to destroy the tapes, a White House spokeswoman said. Bush and Vice President Cheney learned about videotaped interrogations of some al Qaeda suspects on Thursday, when CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed them about the existence of the tapes and their subsequent destruction, administration officials said Friday.

Impeach him. Then send him to The Hague for war crimes prosecution. Seriously.

Huckabee is a neaderthal nut job; supported "isolating" AIDS patients

2007-12-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

And no, not when the epidemic was first being used as a fear attack on gay people in the early 80s (not that this position have been particularly better then), but in 1992:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk."

As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.

Clever.

Now that he is ahead in the polls for the Republican nomination, it looks like the dirty history of this man is coming up. Don't forget about the continuing scandal where Huckabee supported the release of a convicted rapist... who then proceeded to rape and murder a woman. But it was all to get back at Bill Clinton, so as a good douche Republican, Huckabee justified it. Great.

What if he becomes the nominee? haha

btw, a brand new Newsweek poll has Huckabee now leading in Iowa significantly; 39% to Romney's 17%.

Huckabee's skeleton in the closet: releasing a convict who then murdered/raped

2007-12-05T20:17:00.000-05:00

Hard to view this any other way than a horrible development for the Huckabee campaign, not to mention a horrible story in itself:

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post and revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee... "There's nothing any of us could ever do," Huckabee said Sunday on CNN when asked to reflect on the horrific outcome caused by the prisoner's release. "None of us could've predicted what [Dumond] could've done when he got out."

But the confidential files obtained by the Huffington Post show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released.

In a letter that has never before been made public, one of Dumond's victims warned: "I feel that if he is released it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime and fear that he will not leave a witness to testify against him the next time." Before Dumond was granted parole at Huckabee's urging, records show that Huckabee's office received a copy of this letter from Arkansas' parole board.

British big business comes around on climate change; U.S. left behind

2007-12-05T16:56:00.001-05:00

The sane few out there have been saying for years--probably decades--that going green economically does not have to be painful. It does not merely mean that prices will go up and quality down. No, with market incentives like tax on carbon and/or subsidies on renewables leads the private sector to innovate. Find ways of doing more with less, better cheaper. Bush and others don't have faith on our system to do this. But our British brothers? AMERICAblog reports:

What a difference a few years makes. From Kyoto to Bali...

Suddenly, there is a real change of tone. Last week, the Confederation of British Industry published a climate change report that called on the government to deploy the full policy and legal armoury of the state to cut emissions.

The next day, legal firm Clifford Chance published a survey of leading corporate executives, to reveal that more than four-fifths believe more regulation, not less, is needed for them to tackle climate change successfully.

Then, perhaps most importantly of all, came the initiative launched by the Prince of Wales's business leaders' group, pressing governments to collectively agree a tough, science-based and legally binding treaty to reduce emissions in Bali.

This is new and important. Ten years ago in Kyoto, governments wanted regulation, while companies demanded voluntary action. Now the reverse is true. Many governments seek market solutions, while companies are calling for new laws.

National news asks, "Has Bush lost Iran credibility?" Um... did he ever have it?

2007-12-05T16:43:00.000-05:00

The big news over the past 48 hours is that the United States National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) found that it is very unlikely that Iran is still developing nuclear weapons, despite ongoing and unabating rhetoric from the Bush Administration (yes... same administration that commissioned and approved the NIE) about Iran's belligerence. But the term "credibility" is being thrown around as if Bush actually had any:

Print media outlets also suggest the new intel findings and Bush's reaction to them raise questions about the President's "credibility." So much so, says the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill, that "several" Democrats "said that Congress should investigate the discrepancy between the Bush administration's recent doomsday rhetoric on Iran and the NIE's judgments."

McClatchy says the NIE "has dealt another blow to Bush's credibility -- which already was low over his false claims about illicit weapons in Iraq -- because he was aware of the findings when he warned on Oct. 17 that Iran's quest for nuclear weapons could ignite World War III."

Andrew Sullivan adds a note from one of his readers:

No matter how many times he does this kind of thing, it will never ever cease to amaze me that Bush thinks it looks better for him to have been completely ignorant of the NIE on the country he's been portraying as America's greatest threat in the world, than for him to have actually been informed but issuing public contradictory statements anyway.

And then there's AMERICAblog, which while hyperbolic, is also spot on. Will the media actually understand this? Finally?

Okay, let's be clear: Bush has no credibility because he is a liar. The media won't come out and actually say that. Today's articles about Iran dance all around it. But, the reporters seem to have clued in that Bush lies to them. Finally. They just need to keep in mind that he doesn't just lie about Iran and Iraq. He lies about everything.

Among the many, many unfortunate things about this, is that Iran really is a threat. They really do need to be monitored and engaged with using hard, intelligent, and allied-based diplomacy. This administration is incapable of that. And our nation and our world have, do, and will suffer from that horrible fact.

Openly gay U.S. Ambassador resigns with sincere regret

2007-12-04T13:03:00.001-05:00

This is yet another reason that Democrats are different than Republicans. Currently, all major (if not all period) Democrats running for the nomination support full equality for the federal work-force. The Republicans are opposite. If you are willing to commit to service to our nation, our nation should treat you with dignity and equality. But not yet. Posted in full from Andrew Sullivan:

Michael Guest was an openly gay ambassador to Romania for the Bush administration, and his appointment was seen as a sign that the Bushies would not let the anti-gay base determine hiring decisions. Guest is now leaving the State Department:

“Most departing ambassadors use these events to talk about their successes . . . But I want to talk about my signal failure, the failure that in fact is causing me to leave the career that I love,” said Mr. Guest, 50, whose most recent assignment was dean of the leadership and management school at the Foreign Service Institute, the government’s school for diplomats.

“For the past three years, I’ve urged the Secretary and her senior management team to redress policies that discriminate against gay and lesbian employees. Absolutely nothing has resulted from this. And so I’ve felt compelled to choose between obligations to my partner — who is my family — and service to my country. That anyone should have to make that choice is a stain on the Secretary’s leadership and a shame for this institution and our country,” he said.

As the gay people adjust to a stronger, deeper sense of their own equality, the formal discrimination against them supported by the GOP will rankle more and more. Losing the votes and support of gay people and their families may not torpedo the current Republican party. But it weakens it.

Obama and Huckabee gain strength in Iowa, both tied for first

2007-12-03T16:35:00.000-05:00

The latest out of Iowa is that we have a complete dead heat among both Dems and Repubs, the first time this has been the case in decades:

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee moved into first place among Republicans in Iowa, and Illinois Senator Barack Obama is leading the Democratic field, according to a Des Moines Register poll. The shift among the top contenders in both parties since the last Register poll comes about a month before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the first contest in the 2008 nomination race. It is followed by the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8.

Andrew Sullivan comments on Huckabee and Obama here; the bold I think is right on:

The key is that the old red-blue, right-left boomer paradigm is fading; Obama offers exhausted Republicans a way out: a Democrat they can vote for. Many do not actually like the party they have become, and want to move forward into a less nasty, cramped and vicious direction. That's why Huckabee is rising too.

What do they have in common? Huckabee is a conservative whose character appeals to liberals; Obama is a liberal whose temperament appeals to conservatives. Both represent a deep desire to get past the hideous, nasty polarization of the last few years. Obama doesn't despise conservatives the way Clinton does. Huckabee doesn't repel Democrats the way Giuliani and Romney do.

It's going to be a very interesting couple of months.

Republican presidential debate is telling, painful

2007-12-02T21:31:00.001-05:00

Last week's presidential debate between the 17 Republican candidates got brutal, fast. Among my favorite parts were Mitt Romney called hispanic accents "funny" and Rudy Giuliani tried to out flank Romney on the right. Oh, and Romney supports water boarding. TPM has put together ten minutes of the debate's highlights. Do check it out:

Still more sex stories about still-Senator Craig (R-ID)

2007-12-02T21:24:00.000-05:00

According to a local Idaho paper, eight additional men have come out with the news that they had sex with Larry Craig. You can actually listen to them recount their experiences here, which prompted the paper to disclaim:

Audio clip disclaimer: Some of the audio interview excerpts contain explicit descriptions of sex not appropriate for children and listeners who find such content offensive. The Statesman provides the excerpts so Idahoans can hear these accounts and decide for themselves about accusations against Sen. Craig.

And, seemingly using the same sex circle as ubercloseted, anti-gay and now exposed preacher Ted Haggard, Craig and Haggard did the same guy:

Mike Jones is a former prostitute who told the world he had sex with the Rev. Ted Haggard last year. The former Colorado Springs evangelist at first denied it but eventually confessed. Jones says Craig paid him for sex in late 2004 or early 2005.
Sounds like Senator Craig was busy when he wasn't voting against civil rights for gays. What a loser.

Fred Thompson on the Sunday Talk Shows: Total dud

2007-11-19T20:27:00.000-05:00

This is actually kind of painful to watch, but indulge yourself. Republican presidential candidate and king of unfulfilled expectations Fred Thompson was on ABC's This Week yesterday. TalkingPointsMemo compared his performance with the hype. Hence the pain:

Loser Senate Dems gave in on torture... for that??

2007-11-10T19:23:00.000-05:00

Great, way to go:

According to sources inside and outside the Democratic leadership, Harry Reid allowed a vote on Mukasey because in exchange the Republican leadership agreed to allow a vote on the big Defense Appropriations Bill, which contains $459 billion in military spending but doesn't fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reid had wanted to get this bill passed before the end of this week, and in fact, the defense bill did come up for a vote late last night and was passed after the Mukasey vote.

One key reason Dem leaders wanted this defense approps bill passed, sources tell me, is that they wanted to be able to argue that they had sent a bill to the President funding the military, if not the war itself. The idea was that doing this would allow them to protect themselves in the days ahead when the battle over Iraq funding heats up and Republicans inevitably charge that Dems are refusing to fund the troops.

"This lets us argue, `Hey, we just sent $450 billion to the military," one leadership source tells me.

Basically Reid, Schumer, Feinstein and the bunch capitulated to Bush on torture so they could vote to fund the Pentagon $450 billion, so that maybe they can capitulate again to Bush on the War in Iraq?! When is this going to end?

U.S. House passes monumental gay civil rights bill

2007-11-08T12:09:00.000-05:00

Momentous, to say the least. A strong and vibrant majority, 200 Democrats and 35 Republicans, voted to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. From the NY Times:

The House on Wednesday approved a bill granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits.

The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, is the latest version of legislation that Democrats have pursued since 1974. Representatives Edward I. Koch and Bella Abzug of New York then sought to protect gay men and lesbians with a measure they introduced on the fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the brawl between gay men and police officers at a bar in Greenwich Village that is widely viewed as the start of the American gay rights movement.

“On this proud day of the 110th Congress, we will chart a new direction for civil rights,” said Representative Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat and a gay rights advocate, in a speech before the vote. “On this proud day, the Congress will act to ensure that all Americans are granted equal rights in the work place.”

Here is a must-watch speech from a true hero in this struggle, openly gay U.S. Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts. I don't know who the cameo Republican is who wasn't allowing a vote, but what an absolute douche bag. Thank you Rep. Frank for your strength and your tears:

Now we will move to the Senate, where it faces opposition but hopefully will also pass there. Then of course to Bush, who has threatened a veto (thanks!) but may reverse course with enough pressure. We will see. But today, it is good to savor this victory for equality.

Novak via Kos on our Democratic Congress' kowtow to Bush

2007-11-07T16:53:00.000-05:00

I've posted again and again on my frustration with this Democratic Congress. So many of our leaders are either stupid, think we're stupid, or both. This fact reared its ugly head again with the pro-torture Mukasey nomination for U.S. Attorney General, which I wrote about here and here. Kos just posted another time on this, which I post below in full. He cites conservative demon Robert Novak, who is so well-connected to the Republican establishment his commentary is almost always worth listening to. On to kos:

From Novak's email newsletter:

Democrats' public objections to Mukasey centered on whether water-boarding fit the definition of torture. Raising these objections allowed them to turn the Mukasey nomination into another flashpoint for rallying their base against the Bush Administration's conduct of the War on Terror, but their eventual capitulation also followed their pattern on this issue area: Raise a cry, attack the White House and then give the White House what it wants.

That's pretty much it: Sound the alarm. Talk tough. Capitulate.

It's why they look as weak as they do, and it's patently transparent. I just wish I understood what they hoped to gain from it. It sure as heck ain't negotiating leverage.

[I]t's not Bush's style to back down, especially when a key element of his radical and unprecedented expansion of executive power is at stake.

Instead, Bush has learned that the higher he ratchets up the rhetoric, especially if he can accuse his critics of being weak on terror, the more likely Congressional Democrats are to fold. He's simply counting on that happening again.

And it will. Again and again. Because we go to D.C. with the weak Democrats we have, rather than the strong Democrats we wish we had.

Great NY Times article on taxing carbon emissions

2007-11-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

All the talk about global warming, reliance on foreign oil, and general fossil fuel pollution and its associated negative external effects is helpful as the short-term and long-term costs are so real. But the notion that we don't know what to do about it is just false. Instead, the answer is economics, and building in the true *costs* of fossil fuels into the price we pay for them. The New York Times has a very good article about exactly this:

A CHANGE is in the works that could go a long way toward making alternative energy less alternative, and more attractive to consumers and businesses. It’s not a technological fix from some solar-cell laboratory in Silicon Valley or wind-turbine researcher in Colorado or the development of some superbug to turn wood waste into ethanol.

Rather, the change would come from Washington, if Congress does what it has talked about and puts a price tag on greenhouse-gas emissions. Suddenly the carbon content of fuel, or how much carbon dioxide is produced per unit of energy, would be as important as what the fuel costs. In fact, it might largely define what the fuel costs.

That could shake up the economics of energy, handicapping some fuels and favoring others. Those that produce hefty emissions, like coal and oil, would likely look much worse. And some — sunlight, wind, uranium, even corn stalks and trash as well as natural gas — would probably look much better. “Carbon-negative” fuels that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as they are made, might even become feasible.

Unsurprisingly, I could not be more supportive of this. The article goes on to cite some possibilities that might present themselves (through the invisible hand of the market) should we finally pursue this green strategy:

Solar power from photovoltaic cells is very expensive, about 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. But compare a kilowatt-hour produced by such cells, which emit no carbon dioxide, with one produced by a conventional coal plant. At $20 or $30 a ton, the 1.9 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted in producing that kilowatt-hour costs 2 to 3 cents. That cuts into coal’s price advantage and — when coupled with progress in reducing the cost of solar power through manufacturing and economies of scale — gives solar power “a much larger chance to be relevant,” Mr. Gay said. Solar thermal systems, which use mirrors to concentrate sunlight to boil water, might benefit even sooner.
Range Fuels, of Denver, plans to open a plant in Soperton, Ga., next year to make ethanol from pine tree waste. About 25 percent of the tree cannot go to a lumber mill or paper mill, the company says, and is usually left behind when the forest is clear-cut. If it is burned, it produces carbon dioxide. If it rots, it produces methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas.
At Princeton, however, Robert H. Williams, a physicist, is pushing carbon negative bioenergy, in which the carbon monoxide is burned for heat to drive the process, but the resulting carbon dioxide is captured chemically, pressurized into a liquid, and pumped underground.

Let it begin.

Republicans shut down House in order to block vote on gay-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act

2007-11-07T15:42:00.000-05:00

Classy. The gay rights movement has been fighting to obtain federal protections against workplace discrimination on account of sexual orientation for years, and finally under this Democratic Congress we've obtained assurances that it will finally be voted on. The Human Rights Campaign explains why it is needed now:

In 31 states, it is legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation. In 39 states, it is legal to do so based on gender identity.... ENDA is a federal bill that would address discrimination in the workplace by making it illegal to fire, refuse to hire or refuse to promote employees simply based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. It would reinforce the principle that employment decisions should be based upon a person’s qualifications and job performance.

Just recently, ENDA picked up a number of endorsements from national civil rights organizations. The time is now to enact ENDA:

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and six other signatories have put their support behind HR 3685 in a letter to House representatives. The signatories urge support for what it believes can be accomplished for gay and lesbian workers this week, which is to vote on ENDA without the Baldwin Amendment to add gender identity, and look toward workplace protection for the entire LGBT community as it becomes politically possible to do so.

"With each significant step toward progress," the letter says, "the civil rights community has also faced difficult and sometimes even agonizing tradeoffs. We have always recognized, however, that each legislative breakthrough has paved the way for additional progress in the future. With respect to ENDA, we take the same view."

The signatories in addition to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Human Rights Campaign are: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Education Association, National Employment Lawyers Association, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; and the American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees.

Off-year election a boon for Dems nationwide

2007-11-07T15:36:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Election Day, and apart from the plethora of local issues that needed deciding (I won't tell you how many amendments to Seattle's City Charter I read through...), there were a number of races that have national importance. I posted yesterday on Kentucky Republicans' anonymous anti-gay smear tactics against the Democratic nominee for the Governor's job, and now Scott Beshear is the state's new Governor-elect, having obliterated the incumbent Republican, Ernie Fletcher, 59-41. DailyKos has a great round up of the biggest races here, definitely worth checking out. Specifically I'd also like to mention that Democrats took over the Virginia State Senate (one of the most anti-gay ones out there under Republicans), so I take particular pleasure in this:

What used to be a 23-17 Republican majority is now a 21-18 Democratic one, with one seat still neck and neck. In the House, a 56-41 Republican majority (with three independents) is now 52-43 with two independents and three seats still waiting to be called. And particularly delicious was the crushing defeat of Rep. Tom Davis' wife in her Fairfax County senate seat. It's time for the whole family to pull up stakes and head off to richer (K Street) pastures.

Democratic elections in Pakistan: Really such a good idea?

2007-11-06T13:10:00.000-05:00

With all the turmoil in Pakistan, the best public showing Bush can muster is to say that Pakistan should still hold its planned national election in the beginning of 2008 (now incredibly unlikely regardless). But apart from the ineffective rhetorical response to this crisis, is it really what we want for U.S. national security? I can't help think of Palestine, which the U.S. pressured into an election which of course Hamas won, forcing the U.S. to pull out of supporting the Palestinian Parliament/Government.

Of course these are incredibly different circumstances, but the overarching point needs to be stressed for Bush and the neocons: be careful what you wish for. For all of our sakes.

Realpolitik is hard, but I think now we should agree is necessary.

Andrew Sullivan asks a good question re: torture

2007-11-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

Enough is enough, do we torture or don't we? And if we do (which everyone from the Dems to the Republicans seem to agree that we do), then we need to pull out of the Geneva Conventions. We are currently breaking the law of our land as a signatory to this treaty. Constitutional democracies are not supposed to do that:

A large majority believes the bleeding obvious. A smaller majority thinks the US should not torture. My own view at this point is that the Congress should debate whether to remain a party to the Geneva Conventions or not. We can withdraw from treaties if we want to. So let's debate it, shall we? And let the Congress decide, as it is constitutionally empowered to do.

Colbert drops out of presidential race, Obama campaign actually got involved

2007-11-06T12:05:00.000-05:00

I'm not completely sure why, but apparently the Obama campaign did not want Stephen Colbert on the SC Democratic primary ballot. I think it was probably a good move by Obama because you just never know what kind of percentage Colbert's protest candidacy would pull from Obama. But in much more interesting news, here is Colbert's concession remark on pulling out of the race:

"I am shocked and saddened by the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council's 13-to-3 vote to keep me off their presidential primary ballot. Although I lost by the slimmest margin in presidential election history (only 10 votes) I have chosen not to put the country through another agonizing Supreme Court battle. It is time for this nation to heal."

Now that is impressive: Upstart Repub presidential candidate Paul raises $4 million

2007-11-06T12:02:00.000-05:00

IN ONE DAY. Not quite Howard Dean territory, but clearly the hard-core libertarian and anti-war candidate Ron Paul is resonating:

Yesterday's unofficial Ron Paul online fundraiser, held by supporters in ironic commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day, was a smashing success. The final number: $4.07 million in one day. According to the New York Times, Paul has now taken in the best one-day fundraising haul for the Republican field, while the overall record is held by Hillary Clinton's $6.2 million on June 30.

Memo to torture-loving Dems: The public is against torture

2007-11-06T11:57:00.000-05:00

On the same day that the spineless Senators Feinstein (D-liberal California) and Schumer (D-liberal New York) voted in support of Bush Attorney General nominee Michael "Waterboarding" Mukasey, CNN tells us that Americans disagree with Mukasey, Bush, Schumer, and Feinstein:

A majority of Americans consider waterboarding a form of torture, but some of those say it's OK for the U.S. government to use the technique, according to a poll released Tuesday. Asked whether they think waterboarding is a form of torture, more than two-thirds of respondents, or 69 percent, said yes; 29 percent said no. Asked whether they think the U.S. government should be allowed to use the procedure to try to get information from suspected terrorists, 58 percent said no; 40 percent said yes.

Thanks to these horrible Senators, the Mukasey nomination heads to the full Senate for an all-but-certain confirmation. Thanks guys!

Failed Repub Governor of KY scapegoats gays, what does homo-loving Cheney say?

2007-11-06T11:46:00.000-05:00

This guy is a real creep, but luckily the anti-gay fear that worked for Rove in 2004 will most likely not work for this Republican in today's gubernatorial election in Kentucky. Read about the tactics here, and this is what ABC News is reporting on the race in general:

Who would have thought it? Democrats think they are about to steal the governor's mansion in the solidly red state of Kentucky. On Tuesday, voters will choose between Democrat Steve Beshear and incumbent Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher.

Statewide opinion surveys suggest Democrats have every right to be gleaming with hope ahead of the election. Some polls show Beshear ahead of Fletcher by more than 20 points.... Fletcher and several members of his administration were indicted on charges that they illegally rewarded political supporters with state jobs. The indictment was later dropped after Fletcher admitted wrongdoing by his administration.

Shocker, this Republican is a creep! So, if you can't run on your record, why not just attack your opponent for being okay with gay people? AMERICAblog responds in my view appropriately by asking what Dick, Lynne, and their dyke daughter Mary think of all of this:

I'm sorry, but the fact that the vice president's daughter, Mary, is a lesbian, and a lesbian parent to boot, makes this issue relevant for the White House and the national GOP. Does the White House, or does it not, endorse gay-baiting, Mary-Cheney baiting?

Well, of course the answer is that part of what gives Bush-Cheney the power they lust for is the very gay bashing that harms millions of gays and lesbians across the country. The fact that the daughter of Dick Cheney is an out lesbian, de factor married, and with a recently in vitro fertilized baby clarifies the truly hypocritical nature of the entire Republican anti-gay platform. It is as sickening as it is infuriating. I don't like dwelling on my contempt, but I do truly hold it for the Cheneys. Thank you for betraying us all.

Kos op-ed in The Hill: Will Dems ever, ever learn??

2007-11-06T10:19:00.000-05:00

I'm glad Marcos is making this point on one of the truly fundamental, and depressing, realities in our country. The abject failure of the Democratic Congress to fight Bush on his failed domestic and international agenda:

But no matter what pretty words came out of Bush’s mouth about “uniting and not dividing,” it was never his intention to govern in that fashion. Not even the shock of Sept. 11, 2001, and a nation (and world) united in adversity could nudge the president toward a politics of conciliation and partnership. From the start, it became obvious that “compromise” meant “capitulating to Bush’s every whim.” And Democrats were happy to play along. They were simply too insecure in their electoral prospects and secret believers of Tom DeLay’s 2004 post-election edict that “the Republican Party is a permanent majority for the future of this country.”...

Meanwhile, Bush and his svengali Karl Rove consistently achieved new heights of hyperpartisanship — always quicker to demonize the opposition than to compromise. So in 2006, the nation struck back with a resounding message — unitary Republican control was no longer acceptable. A wave of new Democrats was elected to oppose the Bush Republican agenda. House Democrats won the national vote by a solid 54-46, while Senate Dems crushed their Republican rivals, 54-42.

But D.C. is a funny place. No one seems to have gotten that resounding message, certainly not Bush and the new Republican minority. More surprisingly, Democrats also failed to get the message. On issue after issue, the Democratic norm has been to capitulate to the slightest pressure from the GOP. And while the public has meted record-low approval ratings for this Congress in response, the lesson apparently remains unlearned.

Whether it’s Iraq funding or the Michael Mukasey confirmation, Democrats continue to give away the store without receiving any concessions in return. It’s a one-way street in a town that has ceded Article I of the Constitution for a unitary, non-compromising executive. The public is sick of this administration’s betrayals. Why aren’t Democrats?

Gulp, Pakistan declares a state of emergency

2007-11-03T19:22:00.000-05:00

Considering it is nuclearly armed, this is not a good thing:

The president of Pakistan said last night that he was declaring a state of emergency because terrorists threatened the authority of his government. Defending his decision in the face of strong condemnation from Britain and America, General Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan had reached a “dangerous juncture”, with its sovereignty at stake.

He spoke as Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who recently returned from exile, flew back to Karachi after a family break and accused him of imposing martial law. She vowed to fight for the constitution to be reinstated. The stage seemed set for a confrontation between the general who ordered troops onto the streets yesterday and Bhutto, who had hoped to win back the premiership in elections due in January.

Dems bend over and capitulate to Bush's Attorney General nominee

2007-11-03T19:17:00.000-05:00

Ya know, the one who won't say whether or not water-boarding is torture. Two leading Judiciary Committee Democrats have decided that that is A-Okay with them, and will vote to confirm him. By the way, they are Diane Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York. Andrew Sullivan is none too pleased. This is one of the most reactionary posts I've ever seen from him:

They both intend to vote for Mukasey, despite his refusal to state that torture, as practised by this administration, is illegal. Every time the Democrats fold on these matters, Cheney tucks a precedent under his belt. Every time they cave into their cowardice and fear, another critical part of our liberty disappears. These precedents are designed to destroy the rule of law and replace it with the rule of a Decider. And they will last for ever, as will the right to torture, because this war is for ever. This is how democracies perish. The rule of law no longer has any party to defend it. The Republicans want no check on the powers of our de facto protectorate. And the Democrats have no spine. We live under the lawless protectorate we deserve. And such lawlessness is always the result when cowards refuse to confront bullies.

CNN Political Tracker: "Another Republican gay sex scandal"

2007-11-01T16:00:00.001-05:00

And shockingly, the perp claims to be straight!! From my home state of Washington:

It has been a truly scandalous few months for the GOP — for the third time in three months a Republican lawmaker is accused of soliciting sex with another man. This time it's Washington State Rep. Richard Curtis — whose “I’m not gay” defense sounds a lot like Florida State Rep. Bob Allen's and Idaho Senator Larry Craig's. Curtis told the Columbian newspaper in Spokane that he did not have sex with the man.

But the Spokane police department tell CNN a different story. They say that on October 26, Curtis, dressed in women's lingerie, is alleged to have approached a young man in the "Hollywood Erotic Boutique."

The rest of the story is contained in a graphic 50 page police document. The young man alleges Curtis offered him $1,000 for unprotected sex at a nearby hotel. And he says, "At the conclusion of the sexual activities, Curtis fell asleep."

Fair enough, "the young man" must've been good! And then this:

The police report says the man, Cody Castagna, then took Curtis’ wallet — in order to extort money from the representative — and "threatened to publicly expose Richard Curtis' gay lifestyle to his wife."

Live by the sword, die by the sword I guess (pun intended, heh). The Republican Party would do itself well to renounce homophobia and support the acceptance of gays and lesbians once and for all. Unlikely at this point, however. Maybe after another hundred Republican gay sex scandals.

Auto innovator, complete with 8th grade education, kick's Detroit's ass

2007-10-30T14:31:00.000-05:00

Great story from DailyKos about Johnathan Goodwin, a car mechanic and inventor from Kansas City . Here is the last paragraph, hopefully to entice you to read what kos is talking about. Definitely worth checking out:

The problem with Detroit isn't the laws of physics, it's the fact that a guy who never even went to high school can do things -- with stock parts -- that Detroit's auto executives and their armies of engineers claim is impossible. Good ol' American know-how and ingenuity is alive and well, just not where we need it.

And a note about my title, I by no means referred to Johnathan's "8th grade education" as demeaning. It shows two things (a) ultimately formal education isn't needed in our great country and (b) sometimes thinking outside the box is more effective than inside it. As a final caveat, I also support public education in general, haha. Phew.

Andrew Sullivan on Hillary's statement that she'll vote against Bush AG nominee

2007-10-30T14:18:00.001-05:00

I posted the other night on the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General, about which the fault line seems to have been established as whether or not he condones torture (water boarding, in particular). Following Democratic presidential candidates Dodd, Obama, and Edwards, now Hillary says she'll vote against him too after equivocating for a little too long.

AndrewSullivan, who seems to hate Hillary Clinton and rants about her and "the Clinton Machine" way too much these days, nevertheless gives a very cogent explanation for how Hillary reached her decision:

The usual triangulating, you-have-to-parse very-closely Clinton crapola. Let me go out on a limb: of course she'll vote for him without demanding a statement on whether waterboarding is torture - as long as, and no longer than, she decides that it is in her political interest to vote as such. She is very consistent in this: there is no other principle that Clinton has ever operated by or ever will.

I am leaning towards Hillary these days, but I actually completely agree with Andrew here. Too bad we can't trust her more when it comes to something so important as torture.

Fareed Zakaria on Iran: Realpolitik in action

2007-10-30T13:02:00.001-05:00

Much more substantive than my rant below, AndrewSullivan posts a quotation from Newsweek Editor Fareed Zakaria from last night's PBS NewsHour. Sounds right to me:

"If you look at the way in which the mullahs have run Iran, by and large they have been incredibly savvy. They're building up bank accounts in Dubai and in Switzerland. This does not strike me as the kind of ravings of, you know, an end of days millenarian.

The Iranians are trying to capture the core political high ground of the Middle East, and they're trying to become the dominant power in the region. We should be working against them; we should building an alliance against them.

But the idea that they are not going to be deterred by Israel's 200 nuclear weapons, including a second strike capacity on submarines, is just fantasy. It's based on plucking a few quotes here and there from a president who is not constitutionally or operationally in charge of the nuclear program," - Fareed Zakaria, in a debate with Norman Podhoretz on the PBS Newshour last night.

The Republicans and Iran: "Bring 'em on"

2007-10-30T12:02:00.000-05:00

Because Iraq is going so well... But seriously as the episode of TPMTV below illustrates through clips from this past Sunday's talk shows, the Republican presidential candidates and congressional leaders are beating the drum for war. Using words like "inevitable" and "severe consequences" (same language used by Cheney et al leading up to the war in Iraq) are stoking the fire. On the other hand, Democrats make the point that bellicose rhetoric is exactly what the Iranian extremists want. The audacity of the neocons is striking. They were so, so wrong when it came to Iraq, what has changed to make them believable now?

What is so bad about this debate, however, is my basic question that if they want to invade Iran, whose army are they going to use? They have broken the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, we don't have nearly enough troops in Afghanistan, and I don't *think* the diplomatic prowess of the Bush Administration is going to help us find any allies. But again, these people just don't like living in reality.

Watch the clip for a full summary, and prepare to get pissed.

Google finalizing innovative cell phone programming

2007-10-30T11:48:00.001-05:00

Not sure what to make of this because I don't really get it, but it is generally a good idea to give Google the benefit of the doubt:

Web search leader Google is expected to announce advanced software and services enabling handset makers to bring Google-powered phones to market by mid-2008, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter...

According the Wall Street Journal, the Google-powered phones are expected to meld several of its applications, including Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail. The ground-breaking part of the plan, according to the newspaper, is Google's aim to make the phone's software "open," right down to the operating system which controls applications and interacts with hardware. This will grant independent software developers access to the tools they need to build additional phone features, the Wall Street Journal said.

So, I think the answer is: stay tuned.

Bush Attorney General nominee under fire for his fetish with water boarding

2007-10-29T20:35:00.001-05:00

Or, torture, by another name. Apparently presidential candidates Obama and Dodd have committed to opposing the man, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy probably will too. A filibuster is in the making. And this is what it comes down to; he seems to at a minimum condones torture (yes, I'm quoting Fox News, they actually have a decent article:

"I think Judge Mukasey's comments on waterboarding were outrageous, especially given that hes seeking the job of attorney general," Biden told FOX News. "Anyone who thinks that waterboarding is not torture, is not fit — and will not have my support — to be attorney general."

Biden and Dodd are the only two declared Senate opponents of Mukasey's confirmation but their opposition could lead Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, the current Democratic presidential frontrunner, to harden her current "deeply troubled" posture regarding Mukasey.

Philippe Reines, spokeswoman for Clinton's Capitol Hill office said the senator "is deeply troubled by Judge Mukasey's unwillingness to clearly state his views on torture and unchecked executive power." Reines said Clinton had reached no conclusion on whether she would vote to confirm Mukasey.

Thanks for that strong leadership, Hillary...

Obama throws gays under the proverbial bus

2007-10-29T20:28:00.000-05:00

Thanks, faux ally Obama:

Per the NYT, the anti-gay activist turned the entire final half hour of the concert into an anti-gay harangue:

The whole controversy might have been forgotten in the swell of gospel sound except Mr. McClurkin turned the final half hour of the three-hour concert into a revival meeting about the lightning rod he has become for the Obama campaign.
He approached the subject gingerly at first. Then, just when the concert had seemed to reach its pitch and about to end, Mr. McClurkin returned to it with a full-blown plea: “Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay when I have suffered the same feelings,” he cried.
“God delivered me from homosexuality,” he added. He then told the audience to believe the Bible over the blogs: “God is the only way.” The crowd sang and clapped along in full support....Mr. McClurkin’s support for Mr. Obama could signal to some black evangelical voters that race and religion are more important than Mr. Obama’s support for gay rights.

Surprise, surprise, surprise. Obama's anti-gay religious right activist used the opportunity Obama gave him last night to preach his hate to thousands of African-Americans. That's just great. And the white preacher who Obama picked to help explain to the audience that gays aren't minions of Satan? CNN reports that he said nothing at all - just a short little prayer, then he left. As for Obama, he did a taped introduction in which he praised McClurkin, the religious right activist, as one of his favorites. That's nice, because the way to help combat homophobia in the black community is to make sure the gay-basher is first endorsed by someone as high-ranking as Obama, who then chooses to say nothing about the gay-bashing.

Thanks Obama. You have crossed a line in my book. Is this irrational of me? Perhaps. But voting is not just based on the mind.

France lawsuit to Rumsfeld: You are a war criminal

2007-10-29T20:24:00.000-05:00

Good. AndrewSullivan quoted in full:

I've predicted this for a while, but it's the first real sign that many senior members of the Bush administration will have trouble leaving the country in future if they do not want to be arrested for war-crimes:

American and European rights groups filed a legal complaint in France accusing former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for torture in Iraq and at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, the groups said on Friday. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and two Paris-based groups, the International Federation of Human Rights and the League of Human Rights, said they filed the complaint with the Paris prosecutor's office as Rumsfeld
arrived in France for a visit.
The groups say their complaint could go forward because people suspected of torture can be prosecuted in France if they are on French soil. The complaint says Rumsfeld, in his former position as defence secretary, "authorized and ordered crimes of torture to be carried out ... as well as other war crimes."

Le Monde's story is here. Sooner or later, the men who authorized war crimes in the US will be brought to justice.

From the horse's (or bear's...) mouth: A Larry Craig Sexposé

2007-10-28T10:39:00.000-05:00

The Washington gossip blog Wonkette has perhaps the most viewed blog post up on the web right now, a man has come forward with a graphic retelling of anonymous sex that turned out not to be so anonymous. It begins:

We’ve been having loads of fun with gay restroom goblin Larry Craig over the past couple of months, haven’t we? What we’ve been missing, though, is an on-the-record account from a source willing to come forward and tell what it’s like to have an actual romantic liaison with the Idaho Republican. Meet David Phillips, a local IT geek and bear-about-town.Phillips was recently in a bar minding his own business when he heard Craig’s voice on the television. “I went pale and nearly vomited,” Phillips says. It was the man he remembered from one of his creepiest sexual encounters twenty years earlier. “After a truncated meal I went back to my hotel room and began unwinding and jotting down the memories that the voice had opened. I recalled The Follies, the furtive groping and pawing there, the odd following of this man in my car….. Crap!”

Check it out here. Oh yeah, and Larry Craig is not gay.

The Christian Right and the Republican Party: time for a divorce?

2007-10-28T10:29:00.001-05:00

Well, probably not quite yet, but the New York Times has a long article today about the crumbling coalition that has the blogosphere abuzz. I recommend the entire article, but have pasted a few key paragraphs below. The basic premise is that the polls don't lie: after six years of the Bush administration, evangelical support for Bush and the Republican Party has plummeted from upwards of 90 percent approval to where it stands, or wobbles, now:

The extraordinary evangelical love affair with Bush has ended, for many, in heartbreak over the Iraq war and what they see as his meager domestic accomplishments. That disappointment, in turn, has sharpened latent divisions within the evangelical world — over the evangelical alliance with the Republican Party, among approaches to ministry and theology, and between the generations... Today the president’s support among evangelicals, still among his most loyal constituents, has crumbled. Once close to 90 percent, the president’s approval rating among white evangelicals has fallen to a recent low below 45 percent, according to polls by the Pew Research Center. White evangelicals under 30 — the future of the church — were once Bush’s biggest fans; now they are less supportive than their elders. And the dissatisfaction extends beyond Bush. For the first time in many years, white evangelical identification with the Republican Party has dipped below 50 percent, with the sharpest falloff again among the young, according to John C. Green, a senior fellow at Pew and an expert on religion and politics.

And the inane Republican presidential candidates aren't helping:

It is not merely that none of the 2008 Republican front-runners come close to measuring up to President Bush in the eyes of the evangelical faithful, although it would be hard to find a cast of characters more ill fit for those shoes: a lapsed-Catholic big-city mayor; a Massachusetts Mormon; a church-skipping Hollywood character actor; and a political renegade known for crossing swords with the Rev. Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

And then there is Iraq:

Some claim the falloff in support for Bush reflects the unrealistic expectations pumped up by conservative Christian leaders. But no one denies the war is a factor. Christianity Today, the evangelical journal, has even posed the question of whether evangelicals should “repent” for their swift support of invading Iraq. “Even in evangelical circles, we are tired of the war, tired of the body bags,” the Rev. David Welsh, who took over late last year as senior pastor of Wichita’s large Central Christian Church, told me. “I think it is to the point where they are saying: ‘O.K., we have done as much good as we can. Now let’s just get out of there.’ ”

Ya think? Sometimes faith only takes you so far.

Iraq and Turkey cold war turning hot

2007-10-22T15:27:00.000-05:00

I don't so much mean Iraq and Turkey, primarily because, What is Iraq? But I mean the Kurds and Turkey. Since the end of the first Gulf War, the Kurds in Northern Iraq have been relatively autonomous from the rest of the country, which was made even more concrete with the second Gulf War. Which brings us to a very good New York Times article today:

A brazen ambush by Kurdish militants that left at least 12 Turkish soldiers dead touched off a major escalation in Turkey-Iraq tensions on Sunday, bringing fears that Turkey would retaliate immediately by sending troops across the border into Iraq. But Turkey’s prime minister said he delayed a decision, after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice personally intervened. The ambush by a large group of Kurdish militants about three miles from the border with Iraq early on Sunday was seen as a direct provocation on the part of the militants, who have increasingly staged raids into Turkey from hide-outs in the mountains of northern Iraq.

This Turk-Kurd conflict is centuries old, and in a nutshell the second Gulf War further shaked things up geopolitically, by primarily strengthening the Kurds (as cited in my bold above--they are going on the offensive in order to *try* to get the Turks to counter-attack). The Kurds also have a pretty strong geopolitical hand because which country controls national security for Iraq? Ah yes, the U.S. Who has consistently been the U.S.'s best ally in Iraq? Ah yes, the Kurds. And which country that is majority-Muslim has traditionally been the U.S.'s best ally? Ah yes, Turkey.

To summarize, it's a shit-storm that Bush permitted to get out of hand with his war in Iraq. Now, we're literally stuck in the middle. More from the NY Times article:

The Kurdish ambush still drew strong public outrage here, and its brazenness could effectively force the government to make good on its warning to send forces into northern Iraq.Such action by Turkey, a NATO ally, would be extremely embarrassing for the United States, which has military control over the territory that the Turks are threatening to invade. Moreover, a Turkish advance into northern Iraq would instantly bring fresh troubles to a country where the United States is preoccupied with the war. And it would complicate stability in the broader region, which is generally antagonistic to American policy.

And finally, I'll end with this paragraph that really highlights where we are today. This is the President of Iraq, responding to Turkey's demand for Kurdish rebel leaders who reside in Northern Iraq:

For their part, Iraq officials offered a mixed response. While denouncing the Kurdish ambush and expressing the wish for good relations with Turkey, they rejected Turkish demands that militant leaders be captured and handed over to Turkey. “We are looking for peace, not war, and to solve problems peacefully,” said Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president. But Mr. Talabani, who is himself a Kurd, added tartly, “We will not hand any Kurdish man to Turkey, even a Kurdish cat.”

It appears that the world is not as simple and black-and-white as Bush is only capable to view it as.

Howard Dean shoutout

2007-10-21T18:08:00.000-05:00

The New York Times ran a feature piece on Howard Dean and how he is laying relatively low while focusing on building the Democratic National Committee, and by extension the Democratic Party. Check it out here.

On dinner last night with two hispanic women

2007-10-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

I had dinner with two of my friends, one from Central America and the other from Mexico, last night and we started talking about immigration politics. They both came to the United States seeking opportunity and fortunately found it; directly crediting our country for it. But they are livid at the current nature of the debate on immigration reform, particularly when it comes to the Republicans' anti-immigrant position.

But back to the dinner, one of the women was recalling when she dated a Mexican immigrant Republican for a short time recently, and she said upon hearing he was a Republican, said, "How can you be a hispanic Republican?" This was really something to hear from her. As a gay Democrat, I cannot understand gay Republicans, and of course many gays say the same thing, "How can you be a gay Republican?"

If my dinner conversation last night is any indication, Rove's strategy to turn the U.S.'s hispanic population has, well, failed miserabley.

On submitting a business school application

2007-10-21T17:58:00.000-05:00

You feel a sense of actually accomplishing something. And then you pay the $250 application fee, and you don't feel as good. Such is life though.

Must see SNL on Senator Larry Craig (Republican-ID)

2007-10-08T16:57:00.001-05:00

SNL still has it (hat tip AMERICAblog):

London photo essay

2007-10-08T16:47:00.000-05:00

I just came back from a week in London working out of my company's office there. I'm back now, and hope to blog a number of posts tonight. But first, some pictures of the trip:

A small river in London's Hyde Park

Hyde Park tree

Old British pigeon

Swan in London